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Helldorado

Life 2/10/99

In almost classic Bhatt-zine fashion, I am writing this at 3:00 a.m. Although true Bhatt-zine fashion would demand at least a performance that prevent me from writing this until 7:00 a.m, but then again I am almost 28 years old and it is a Wednesday night. All that said, only Helldorado could bring me out until 3:00 a.m. on a Wednesday night any more. Koronet was closed and I found myself at Mike’s Papaya to fill my late night hunger.

I have never been to Life before. I have seen ads in The Voice recently for shows at Life which have included the likes of The Suicidal Tendencies and The Misfits. Both those shows were put on by Chris Williamson of NY HardCore infamy. I was on the guest list so fortunately I didn’t have to pay the $15 cover charge. Life is actually swank enough to pull off a $15 cover charge for bands other than the likes of Sick Of It All, Cro-Mags, and Agnostic Front. Coney Island High, the best club in NYC could never pull that off with out a huge name headlining. When 13+ bands played Coney Island High and the show was recorded for the Creepy Crawl Live CD the cover was only $13 and that included Murphy’s Law, Skarhead, H2O, Crown of Thornz, 25 ta Life, Killing Time, and Sub-Zero. Then again, at Life, it was nice being in a crowd were everyone was my age. A lot of old school punks were there and no kids with backpacks.

Adam Vomit, the bass player for The Toilet Boys and ex-worker at Columbia Bagels, did a ventriloquist act that was quite lame. Even without seeing The Toilet Boys and only hearing one Toilet Boys' song on Howard Stern I can honestly say Adam is a better bass player than comic/ventriloquist.

There was a circus side show on before Helldorado and I must say that they were impressive. They were two extremely attractive girls that made cats look like hippopotamuses. I have never seen agility like this before. They contorted their bodies like no one has ever seen before and then pulled out a 3’X5’ sheet of nails that I ran my hand over and was very real. It shredded the napkin I ran over it. After making cats look like elephants these girls proceeded to break cinder blocks on their stomachs while lying on the “bed of nails.” After they were finished with the show they took the sledge hammer and continued breaking the cinder blocks. One of the guys next to me took a piece home as a souvenir.

Never before in my life have I seen all the girls in the audience cheer for two extremely attractive girls performance throughout the entire thing. I was sure they were as jealous of their agility as they were of there beauty while performing acts that only the most gifted gymnast could do. But then again at a hardcore show, exterior beauty is not the basis for feminine competition.

So on comes Helldorado. Damn!!! Helldorado has to be the best band to play the NYC punk rock/hardcore/country scene ever. They incorporate the best of everything. Johnny Cash, Agnostic Front, The Circle Jerks, and Nine Pound Hammer. They have taken the best of all those styles and blended them into a style you cannot find anywhere else, if you could I would be sleeping right now. Few bands have taken me by storm, but this is one of them. The other would be Jimi Hendrix, and I am struggling to find a second, but am considering Led Zeppelin and Murphy’s Law. Helldorado is a very tight band. While I hesitate to say they are one of the tightest bands around, they have the benefit they haven’t even been around long enough to put out a CD, which is more than I can say about a lot of bands. They even had a little slide guitar in there too. I left tonight’s show with five Helldorado shirts. I don’t even know what I am going to do with them yet, but it was worth the money. The only shame I can associate with Helldorado is that in a couple years I will only be able to see them in Madison Square Garden instead of my favorite club, Coney Island High. Kind of like how we passed up the opportunity to see Nirvana at The Marquee (held maybe 300 people) Junior year of college only to see that there next NYC appearance was some where like Madison Square Garden.